Skype apologises for forgetting 'critical' patch

Skype has apologised for a PR blunder after failing to notify users a month ago that it had patched the Windows version of its voice-over-IP (VoIP) client software against a critical bug. Company spokesman Villu Arak apologised for the blunder, which Skype called an "unintentional communication oversight".

VoIP firm failed to tell users of security fix

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Skype has apologised for a PR blunder after failing to notify users a month ago that it had patched the Windows version of its voice-over-IP (VoIP) client software against a critical bug. Company spokesman Villu Arak apologised for the blunder, which Skype called an "unintentional communication oversight".

"We strive to inform the public of vulnerabilities and malware that may affect Skype software," said Arak on the company's security blog. "While this particular vulnerability was fixed, there was an unintentional communication oversight and we failed to bring the case to the public's attention. All we can do now is to apologise."

Arak was reacting to an advisory published last Thursday by 3Com's TippingPoint division and its bounty-for-bugs Zero Day Initiative. The bug, said TippingPoint, was in a Skype uniform resource identifier (URI) protocol handler that could be exploited to hijack a Windows machine by duping its owner into steering to a malicious website.

TippingPoint reported the bug to Skype on November 2; Skype patched it on November 15, less than two weeks later, Arak said. "The issue was fixed in the public release of Skype 3.6 for Windows," he said. "All versions of Skype for Windows updated or installed as of November 15 include the patch."

In a separate alert, Symantec spelled out how users can tell if they're running a vulnerable version of Skype. "Customers can check ... by clicking Help, About Skype. If you are running a version earlier than 3.6.0.216, then you should upgrade," the advisory read.

The vulnerability wasn't the first URI protocol-handler bug that Skype has had to patch, nor is it the only application that has faced the issue this year. In May 2006, Skype fixed a command-line parsing flaw in the URI handler of the Windows client, for example.

And other developers, including Mozilla and Adobe, have patched their software against protocol-handler errors multiple times since July. Mozilla fixed a Firefox URI bug as recently as two weeks ago. After a contentious debate over responsibility, Microsoft also issued its own fix for Windows on November 13.

The current, patched version of Skype for Windows can be downloaded from the company's site.